


The very limits of the sky

by 35391291



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 09:56:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6047323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/35391291/pseuds/35391291
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The words both mock and taunt him, whispering promises and threats. They feel bittersweet and almost painful beneath his fingers. Something that resembles magic fills his head, his lungs, and turns him into a small thing, like a feather caught in a hurricane.</i>
</p><p>The reader marvels at his book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The very limits of the sky

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [TheDove](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thedove) for beta-ing and all-around awesomeness!

Childermass has always been a practical person. A man of business, always doing what has to be done. So when he finds himself in the surprising situation of being Reader of a most unlikely Book, he is ready to do his part, in the only way he knows how to. Straight-forward and focused. He is, after all, used to hard work. And things may have just turned out exactly the way they should. This is a feeling more than a fact, but he acknowledges it nevertheless.

As days pass and the letters grow dim and fade before his eyes, he suspects that the words are taking on new meanings. The ones he has already deciphered, thanks to hours of effort, seem to shape-shift and intertwine in new ways. And the ones that are still a mystery appear to mock him, as with a life of their own.

He reckons it is so: after all, the words seem to take on the mind of the Book they are printed upon. So they settle into a familiar routine, than more often than not, ends with Vinculus napping under a tree, or raising hell in any ale house he can manage to get into.

Childermass would not openly admit it, but he is glad for those interruptions. Sometimes he becomes weary, and it gets the best of him. The light plays tricks on his eyes, until he sees the words melting and running away, the ink moving and getting into his own flesh instead, mocking him with strange, dark meanings that whisper of Faerie, and of things he has never allowed himself to think about. Sometimes he can feel the sky speaking to him again, and sometimes it feels gentler, as if the meaning was slowly yielding to him, allowing him to understand bits and pieces here and there, like a conversation overheard from behind a closed door. He feels the words as strongly as spirits, as real as the Northern landscape, and as passionate and intoxicating as magic. But he pushes these notions away, practical as ever. If one deals with Faeries, one ought to expect something to go awry. This is what he tells himself.

Until the meaning overturns his world. He is not prepared for what follows, for the rush of words, of meaning, of flesh. The words both mock and taunt him, whispering promises and threats. They feel bittersweet and almost painful beneath his fingers. Something that resembles magic fills his head, his lungs, and turns him into a small thing, like a feather caught in a hurricane. He is afraid, but he wants more, he has always wanted more of this deeper meaning, of this unspoken prayer, of this language of birds, of earth, of sky.

Everything shatters into the earth, into the here and now, and he knows that practical thinking will not help him now, not when he has to read words bigger than himself, bigger than the both of them and everything they have known before. These are words belonging to kings with foreign names, and yet, are they so different from the ones that spell out the yearning of ordinary men?

There are no answers, and before he knows it, Childermass feels something like a tide overtaking him. The sailor in him longs for a lifeline, an anchor of sorts. He cannot help himself from pressing his mouth to Vinculus's shoulder, desperate to decipher, to understand, to know. Vinculus freezes for a moment, almost as if to protest, but then the intensity of the bond overtakes him, too. He understands: he sees how they fit together and into the spell, how they play a part in the mysterious scheme of things, and how they are a piece of something bigger, something that they cannot fully grasp, and can only make half-sense of, like they would do with a dream.

And indeed, it seems to be through a dream-like haze that Childermass dives into all those words, as many as he can cup into his hands, his mouth, his heart. The lack of meaning becomes madness, and the madness somehow becomes the meaning. Perhaps that was the message all along.

After what feels like an eternity, he takes a deep breath, as if resurfacing from underwater, and his head clears somehow. All he can do then is stroke one single word over and over. One word that just might carry every meaning in the world, both written and unwritten, wrapped inside itself like a shell. One word that goes beyond language and understanding and the very limits of the sky.

"What does it mean?", Vinculus asks carefully. His voice is low and peculiar, as if he already knows the answer. As if he feels the words printed on his body might have changed their meaning again. Perhaps they have.

"I do not know", Childermass replies. But somehow, he feels this untold meaning is safe, hiding in his mouth.


End file.
